In a wireless communication system, a network device needs to notify a terminal (also called user equipment or UE) in a coverage area of reference signal configuration information, so that the UE can perform downlink channel estimation according to the reference signal configuration information, thus improving bit error performance of the system.
The prior art discloses a manner of notifying the UE of common reference signal (CRS) configuration information. In practical application, the network device notifies the UE of a pilot pattern through a manner of performing a shift operation on an implicit mapping that binds the pilot pattern of a downlink CRS with a cell identifier, and further, implicitly notifies the UE of the number of ports of the CRS through system information block (SIB) signaling.
In the process of implementing embodiments of the present invention, the inventor finds that the prior art has at least the following disadvantages:
In the prior art, because the UE is merely notified of the CRS configuration information, through the implicit mapping that binds the pilot pattern with the cell identifier, the number of downlink channels of different cells that can be distinguished by the UE is limited by the number of the cell identifiers, and in a coordinated multipoint processing (CoMP) system, CRSs in one CoMP measurement set, which includes multiple possible CoMP collaborative cells, may collide with each other.